{"id":4548,"date":"2019-02-25T13:27:46","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T18:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/?p=4548"},"modified":"2019-11-22T11:44:59","modified_gmt":"2019-11-22T16:44:59","slug":"stitch-by-stitch-amanda-downing-carney-03-costume-shop-director-at-trinity-repertory-theatre-on-her-career-in-the-world-of-costume-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/news\/stitch-by-stitch-amanda-downing-carney-03-costume-shop-director-at-trinity-repertory-theatre-on-her-career-in-the-world-of-costume-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Stitch by Stitch: Amanda Downing Carney ’03, Costume Shop Director at Trinity Repertory Theatre, on Her Career in the World of Costume Design"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amanda Downing Carney, South Kingstown, RI, native, entered URI as an undecided major. She states that her advisor encouraged her to take a diverse courses in help her find her niche. She enrolled in Professor David Howard\u2019s costume history class, influenced by the artsy shows she watched on television and memories of her grandmother had taught her to sew. On her first day, Carney was in awe at the career prospects the course proposed. \u201cI thought, \u2018Oh my god, this is a job\u2019?\u201d she recalls with a laugh, \u201cI loved how it involved history and being artistic\u201d. Carney fell in love with the small, tight-knit program. After working backstage with the wardrobe department and spending hours sewing in the costume shop, she declared a major in Theatre. She got the opportunity to design Mainstages university productions), and she worked alongside URI Theatre alum and Gamm Theatre artistic director Tony Estrella to design his 2002 production of <\/span>subUrbia<\/span><\/i>. Carney adds that she not only loved the people in the program and working on productions, but she also took a liking to the method of URI\u2019s Theatre BFA program. \u201cThe Theatre program really immerses you in the complete theatre experience,\u201d Carney states. <\/span><\/p>\n

Carney was in fact the only Costume Design major in her graduating class. After graduating in 2003 with a BFA in Technical Theatre and a concentration in Costume Design, Carney earned a job as a stitcher at the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI. She worked her way up the ranks, eventually landing her current position as Trinity Rep\u2019s Costume Shop Director. Carney\u2019s main responsibility is to take the designer\u2019s vision and \u201ctranslate\u201d it to costuming, while ensuring costumes\u2019 functionality. As she puts it, \u201cIt\u2019s like building a house, only with costumes\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

She credits a great deal of her achievements to URI Theatre: \u201cTheatre fosters empathy and the ability to put yourself in others\u2019 shoes,\u201d Carney explains, \u201c[It\u2019s] so collaborative all the time, and you\u2019re constantly solving problems together. You learn how to communicate and listen, how to share, and how to be wrong.\u201d As for advice, Carney has a lot of insight to give. \u201cDon\u2019t take summers off, make connections\u201d she advises, \u201cA lot of people I know started getting internships after graduation, but you have to be all in\u201d. She also brings up a major life lesson taught to Trinity Rep interns. \u201cBe nice to everyone,\u201d Carney states, \u201cbecause you never know who your boss is going to be. People want to work with people who are easy to work with\u201d. She concludes: \u201cI followed my professors\u2019 advice and have never looked back. I\u2019ve never not supported myself by working in theatre\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

-Written by Chase Hoffman ’21, Writing & Rhetoric and Anthropology Double Major<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amanda Downing Carney, South Kingstown, RI, native, entered URI as an undecided major. She states that her advisor encouraged her to take a diverse courses in help her find her niche. She enrolled in Professor David Howard\u2019s costume history class, influenced by the artsy shows she watched on television and memories of her grandmother had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1089,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[118],"class_list":["post-4548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-theatre"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1089"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4548"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4557,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4548\/revisions\/4557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/artsci\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}